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Remembering Decimal Day – 40 years on

The booklet every household in Britain received in preparation for decimalisation

On Monday, February 15, 1971, Britain’s currency went decimal. Forty years on, it’s an ideal opportunity for nostalgia about the wonderful coins we had before that Decimal Day.

The £1 remained the basic unit of our currency and in those days we had green £1 notes, rather than the brassy coins we have today – those were introduced in 1983 and the £1 note was withdrawn in 1988.

The £1 note of my childhood – it was changed to a smaller one in 1978 and £1 notes were eventually withdrawn in 1988

But now the £1 was divided into 100 new pennies. Previously there had been 240 old pennies, not that we thought of it like that. There were 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound.

We had our complicated (imperial) weights and measures tables on the back of every red exercise book and many was the childhood hour we spent memorising them.

Coins were so much bigger then, and the non-decimal system made sure we were good at arithmetic. No wonder our “times tables” went up to 12, rather than the obvious 10 (obvious because we have 10 digits on hands and feet, made for counting on).

A pocketful of pennies also contained the history of our kings and queens for more than a century. Before decimalisation came in, we were able to amass portraits in copper of Queen Victoria, Edward VII, George V, George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. Of course George VI is much in the news in 2011 with the success of the film The King’s Speech.

As for Edward VIII (of Mrs Simpson fame), well, we didn’t count him as his coins of 1937 were made but never circulated. They have great rarity value.

The oldest pennies we used in the run-up to Decimal Day were those of Queen Victoria in her youth – but they were so worn by then that sometimes only a vague outline was left.

We also had coins of Victoria in her old age – we used to say she was in her widow’s weeds, although that’s a bit illogical as she was a widow at a very young age and a closer look at the coin now shows a veil, but not over her face.

These worn Queen Victoria pennies from 1862 and 1900 were in everyday use until 1971...

The weight of all those huge pennies! No wonder we had holes in our pockets…

From the age of five I used to help out with my mother in the local shop (no child care in those days) and I recall there was a Mrs “rattler” Evans, so-called because she always rattled the pennies noisily in her pocket as she came into the shop to browse. There was another, Mrs “thruppenny” Evans because she always asked for “thruppence worth of bacon” and “thruppence worth of cheese”, etc…

At a stroke on Decimal Day all this history was gone. It was so significant that I wrote about it in my diary:

Wrapped in polythene and Sellotape and stuck in my diary - the first copper coins from Decimal Day, February 15, 1971

D (for Decimal) day.
I went to Newport with Dad…
I was determined to get my hands on one of each of the new decimal bronze coins, so I had to find articles at the right price. I couldn’t, so eventually ended up with a packet of crisps, packet of chocolate peanuts (I thought they were raisins!), four new 2pm pieces, one 1p piece and two 2p pieces.
They are very nice coins. I suppose the novelty will soon wear off (as will the shine).
It snowed!

At that time I was doing my mock GCE O-levels (forerunners of the GCSEs) and Apollo 14 had splashed down a few days earlier.

On that day only the coppers were being changed because bigger denominations had already been changed gradually in preceding years. The smaller new coins were left until last because they weren’t an exact multiple or fraction of old pennies.

The earlier coins had been so familiar and so well-loved that we even had nicknames for some of them. A few remained and were translated into “new money”. The “florin” (two shillings) was still worth 10 new pence, the “bob” (one shilling) was still worth five new pence and the “tanner” (six old pence) was worth two-and-a-half new pence.

The 'tanner' and 'bob' - old sixpence and old shilling, which was twice the size of the sixpence and about the same size as the current 10p

The “tanner” was eventually withdrawn in 1980 and the new 5p and 10p pieces were halved in size in 1990 and 1992 respectively.

There were other losses. The “half-crown” or “two-and-six” (which would I guess be worth 12-and-a-half new pence) had gone out of circulation in 1969, as had the old half-penny with a ship on it. The half-crown was a really weighty coin, especially in a child’s hand, and made a worthy pocket-money gift from visiting relatives.

Pre-decimal farthing and halfpenny (twice the size of the farthing)

The farthing or quarter-penny with its memorable wren picture had already ceased to be legal tender in 1960, but for some reason we still had one on the potting-shed bench and I just left it there.

The 10-shilling note of the 1960s...

The old red-brown 10-shilling note had been replaced by a seven-sided 50p piece in 1969-1970 and this coin was reduced in size in 1997. My older brother used to call 10 bob a “dollar”, although more common was calling £1 a “quid” or a “nicker” – as in “Lend me a quid” or “That cost me 50 nicker!” I don’t think it was ever “nickers”!

Brass that looked like gold when new - a Queen Elizabeth II three-penny piece

Then finally there is the three-penny piece. Oh what a joy they were. Twelve-sided, golden (or brassy) when new and with a picture of a portcullis. The thruppenny piece, along with the old penny, had disappeared from circulation within about a fortnight of Decimal Day.

All in all, everyone thought we had been “diddled” by decimalisation. Inevitably with the loss of the old half-penny in 1969, prices had been rounded up, and again this happened with the loss of the old penny. Prices that had previously been £1 19s 6d (£1/19/6) in old money were rounded up to £1.99p in new money – an increase in effect of one-and-a-half old pennies (I think! And I said old money made us good at arithmetic!).

A 'tiddler' - the new half-penny circulated from 1971 to 1984

The biggest (or smallest?) bone of contention was the new halfpenny piece. It was tiny and as a result was nicknamed a “tiddler”. It was awkward for arthritic old hands to handle and easily disappeared into the hidden corners of purses and pockets.

It was not long for this world and was withdrawn from circulation in 1984, by which time it was not “worth” much. But its loss again led to a rounding up of prices.

Not only have we lost coins. We have also gained some – the seven-sided 20p and the wonderful big £2 coin, which I always think of as “chocolate money” – but don’t bite it, you’ll break your teeth!

You will still see traces of the old currency today, perhaps if you pick up an old paperback in a charity book shop. Look at the back and quite often you will see the price in both old and new money.

Oh my goodness, I’ve just realised that I still say “What’s that in old money?” as a catch phrase to this day – and I bet our young people today don’t know what on earth I’m on about!

Here's the latest set of lovely decimal coins from the Royal Mint at Llantrisant in South Wales...

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The old currency might have been nicer, and more varied, to look at, but calculating the stuff in base 12 (pennies in a shilling), base 20 (shillings in a pound), or even base 21 (shillings in a guinea – still around when I was younger), was a world away from the mundane base 10 of the decimal system. And don’t even get me started on percentages!

Personally, I was glad to see it go (I worked in shipping during the day and in a bar at night – financial calculations dominated my life, and adding up pounds, shillings and pence in one’s head, in a busy bar was a real pain – this was way before computerised tills), and switching to the same system as most of the rest of the world made life immeasurably easier, especially when converting currencies (export documentation often had to be in the language and currency of the destination country).

I went out to lunch on D-day, paid the new prices and never thought of the old system again (except in that the old coinage hung around for what seemed far too long).

I could never understand people, like my mother, who ever afterwards wasted her time converting prices back to “old money”. To what purpose? The price was the price, what it used to be was academic. And it was a cross-generational thing – people either adapted more or less instantly – or didn’t at all.

And even though it sidelined a large chunk of history (the symbols used for pounds, shillings and pence date back to the Romans £ – Libra, s – solidus, d – dinarius; the £ sign being a stylised L), I honestly can’t say I was sorry to see it go.

Yes, as usual you are right on all counts, Ron.
I guess it’s just that I was a little bit of a coin collector as a child and there was more variety in the old stuff.
And I haven’t been abroad since most of Europe went over to the Euro coins.
And I do remember items being sold in guineas.
I love the extra information about L/S/D – you know me and my Latin!
All the best…

This was a lovely trip down memory lane, Pat! I used to love the ten shilling notes and the half-crowns (one or the other being an easy gift for relatives to make!). And I still mourn the loss of our £1 notes. Those decimal halfpennies were ridiculous — worthless even when first minted. It’s funny how those little farthings used to turn up everywhere for years after they ceased being legal tender. The wren always fascinated me.

Thank you for your kind comments.
My best memory of those brown 10 shilling notes was at Chepstow race course, when a friend and I (her brother was a jockey) found a 10-bob note in a wire waste bin, tucked inside a racecard. We bet it on a horse we liked the look of – a grey with a rider in purple and yellow silks. It only came third but we won enough to split it three ways, her, me and her mother. To think they would be worth only 50p now.
Keep up the good work on your Wordwatch blog, too! Great stuff…
x

The late forties/early fifties were a good time, as a child, to have an interest in money, particularly foreign money. There was what seemed to be a vast amount of exotic foreign currency floating around, along with wads of army of occupation scrip from both the European and Pacific theatres.

Most of it was worthless as currency, but invaluable in enabling a little kid, confined to bed by illness much of the time, to reach out by proxy into a vastly wider world than he had ever suspected existed, from deep in the slums of post-war Manchester.

Now, the wheel has turned full circle, and my computers allow me to do much the same things for much the same reasons – interact with a world which I can no longer access physically, but in ways that, 60 years ago, were barely in the realms of science fiction.

Lovely thoughts, Ron.
Although I was lucky enough not to be ill very much as a child (apart from mumps, measles, German measles, chicken pox and rather exotic scarlet fever), I too had the experience of a small collection of foreign coins. A family friend had been in the Army and gave me a pile including some from India, South Africa and Palestine. It teaches so much as well as arithmetic – history, geography, languages…
Have a good day on the ‘net… :)